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Recipe

Chestnut Cake (Castagnaccio)

Castagnaccio (chestnut cake) is basically chestnuts sweetened with raisins, then infused with the fragrant taste of fresh rosemary. Slightly sweet and slightly savoury, it's almost more of a bread than a cake - flat and dense in consistency with a crunchy topping. This cake can be enjoyed warm or cold and at any time of the day. As a dessert, we'd serve it with organic ricotta or mascarpone and a little raw honey.

Introduction

Jasmine’s best friend is Italian, and her mum told us about this simple, gluten-free cake – so simple it doesn’t even contain eggs or butter! She remembered it being traditionally wholesome so all we’d have to do is adapt the sugar element to suit our own tastes. We use maple syrup or date syrup to sweeten our cake, but not honey as the heat destroys the health properties of honey. Try this cake with or without the orange zest, add cacao for a chocolate version and experiment with other dried fruits and nuts.

How To:

1. Soak the nuts in a bowl of filtered water for at least 4 hours. Drain and discard the water.

2. Soak the raisins for at least an hour, drain and reserve the water.

3. Preheat the oven to Fan 170°C/338°F/Gas Mark 5 and line a baking tray (2.5cm deep) with baking parchment.

3. Sift the chestnut flour into a mixing bowl.

4. Gradually add the water from the raisins, whisking continuously to avoid lumps forming. The batter should be a smooth paste – not too runny or thick – and fall from the spoon in ribbons.

5. Mix in the maple syrup and sea salt and pour the mixture into a the prepared baking tray.

6. Sprinkle the nuts, raisins and rosemary evenly over the surface and press them lightly into the batter.

7. Bake in the oven for 30 minutess or until the top begins to crack and brown.

8. Allow the cake to cool slightly before drizzling with olive oil.

9. Serve with some organic ricotta (omit for a DF version) and a drizzle of raw honey

2 Responses to “Chestnut Cake (Castagnaccio)”

Sally Nesta

I made this cake last night as I am cutting refined sugars, wheat, gluten and most dairy out of my diet. I have just sampled the first piece – it is amazing! I added 100% (approx 2 tbsp) cacao powder to the flour before adding the water and totally forgot to buy Rosemary, so my version unfortunately doesn’t have the beautiful aromatic flavour of the herb. It doesn’t matter though! It’s awesome, a little bit like the flavour of malt loaf, but different. I will certainly be making this again and adding orange zest and Rosemary next time. My in-laws are Itallian and I can’t wait to tell them about it. Thank you ladies, another fabulous recipe and one that will become a firm favourite – I can actually have my cake and eat it, even with the nutrition and health choices I’m making.